Monthly Archives: January 2006

Well, I did finish the book. And I finished it on Tuesday, the day after I posted that last blog. Now, it’s Friday, and I have finished typing the thing in. And it is huge. Massive. Okay, let’s face it, the book is absolutely obese.

I have a passing acquaintance with obesity, being mumbledy-something pounds overweight myself (but I have lost enough finally to be TWO pants-sizes down from my peak). However, I don’t think walks to the post office, then around the park, past the abandoned saddle factory and the gray horse in his vacant lot will do a whole lot for this book.

I’m totally embarrassed by my book’s condition, as well. It’s not as if I didn’t have plenty of room to get the story in. I believe I mentioned before that Luna fantasies can be up to 150,000 words. I took The Eternal Rose up to 178,600 frickin’ words. That’s 714 cotton-picking pages. This means I now have to cut out 114 pages.

So, after the obvious scenes I already know can go, and all the extraneous chitchat I always seem to put in, I’m going to really have to gut it up and hack away, I guess.

Wish me luck.

I’ve been working on the 3rd book in this trilogy, trying to reach the end, and I’m having the devil of a time getting there, because the book has somehow grown in the writing of it. I have 150,000 words I can use to write the story–600 pages, assuming 250 words per page.

I write longhand first drafts, remember, and I am typing it in as I go. I just typed in page 601. And I have a bunch of pages left in my blue manila folder to be typed. This explains part of why the book won’t end. I am insanely longwinded.

I have identified some scenes that can be cut and several places that can be thinned out and others that can be summarized. But that’s still a lot of verbiage, and I’m not sure that all of it can go.

Part of the reason it’s so long is that not only do I have to tie up all the threads in This book, but since it’s the last book in a trilogy, I have threads from the earlier books I need to tie up. I made Obed im-Shakiri a very mysterious man, and now I have to explain most of that mystery. Who he is and where he came from. And the demon is the biggest and the baddest. And–well, there’s just a lot of stuff to do.

I think I jinxed myself when I titled it The Eternal Rose.

Seems it wants to take an eternity to get itself written. (sigh.)

Onward and upward.

Gail (who actually may get to write The End tomorrow or the next day) (knock on wood!)

I begin to think that I am truly certifiable. Here I am, trying to finish this stinkin’ book (they all start to stink, the closer it gets to deadline without ‘the end’ being written), and I have glommed onto a new project.

I am a bit of a hobby junkie. I have this need to try lots of stuff, and I’m terrible about starting huge projects and then never finishing them. It’s one reason I take an art class, so that I have a definite time and place to go and paint. I love to paint, but if I had to squeeze the time and space to paint at home, I never would. I’d find other piddly things to do. It’s why, though I complain about them, I actually love deadlines. I have something driving me to FINISH.

Anyway, amongst my many hobbies is quilting. It’s a creative thing that’s almost brainless while you’re actually doing it because of all the repetitive motions, so that your subconscious can work on something different while the conscious mind is concentrating on matching seams or keeping the stitching line straight. Of course, I have lots and lots of quilts that aren’t anywhere near finished–including last year’s “Block of the Month” County Extension project–but that doesn’t stop me from getting all excited about new ideas or buying new fabric. (I am definitely a fabric addict.) Which finally brings me to my point, and it actually does have a bit of something to do with books and writing and such.

I’m going to attempt to create a quilted variation of the compass rose symbol that’s used in all three of my One Rose trilogy books. I can’t actually find anything that looks exactly like the symbol I made up and the Luna art department developed, which is why the variation, but I’m kind of excited about it. I found a Mariner’s Compass pattern I’m going to adapt. I’ve bought fabric in the compass colors–blue for the north, green for the east, yellow for south and black for west, plus a red to go in the center around the rose I’m cutting out of a rose-print fabric. (Part of the adaptation). In the symbol, the cardinal directions are indicated by a blue lightning bolt, green twining vine, yellow flame and black briar and I’m thinking that, beyond the Mariner’s compass block, I may try to adapt those designs from the book, if I’m feeling ambitious. We’ll see how far I get first.

I suppose I could post my progress here on the blog. And even do pictures, if I can figure out how to use that feature. 😉 That would give me pressure–er, well–motivation to actually get this new project done. I can’t write in the afternoons very well. I tend to fall asleep over the work. But I can do other things. Or maybe I won’t begin until my deadline is no longer looming over me. I probably should…

So, okay, I’ll get busy on the book. Then I’ll do the quilt…

It’s been a happy time around here with the waning of the old year and the beginning of the new one. We got a little extra visit with the grandboys before Christmas and had lots of fun playing with them and watching them open presents. This was the little one’s second Christmas, and at 20 months, he’s finally gotten the idea of ripping paper off packages. Big brother was not happy that Daddy wouldn’t let him open all his packages with many small pieces, but he had to go back home Christmas afternoon.

The next day, we headed off to Colorado Springs to visit with the other grandboy who lives in Chicago, but was visiting his other grandparents in Colorado. It was so much fun to see him, even though he was a bit clingy with mom & dad, because he wasn’t at home in his own place. I of course caught some kind of cough/crud from one of the three little guys, but finally have some good drugs and am beginning to get better. So, the brain has essentially been turned off for a couple of weeks and now I have to get it turned on again. Still haven’t finished the book.

I did come home to the very lovely news that The Compass Rose is a nominee for the RT BookClub Reviewer’s Choice Award for Best Fantasy Novel of 2005. Given that it is up against some seriously big names in fantasy, (like Lois McMaster Bujold for The Hallowed Hunt) I am absolutely thrilled to be nominated.

I’m not even sure when the winners are announced. When is the RT convention?

A shout out to my fellow LUNA author, C.E. Murphy for the nomination of her book, Urban Shaman, for Best Modern-Day Fantasy Novel of 2005. Congratulations, Catie! LUNA is beginning to make its mark.